Judge orders Catholic man to ‘serve’ 12 Sundays at Baptist church after hitting preacher in the face

A Catholic man who got into a fight with Baptists over whether or not he was going to hell got an unusual sentence from a Cincinnati judge, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.

Jake Strotman, a window salesman, found himself in trouble at a hockey game in January. After enjoying the game and some alcohol, he approached Baptist street preachers who told him he was hell-bound.

“They were telling me I was going to hell,” Strotman told the Enquirer. “I was asking them, ‘Why do you think you can condemn people?’ I didn’t understand why they thought they could judge me.”

Someone else saw the commotion and decided to approach the group, but this man went “off like a ball of fire,” Strotman told the paper.

That’s when things started getting violent. After some pushing and shoving, threats and a camera broken, he ended up at the bottom of a dog pile, and planted a fist in the face of one of the street preachers.

Judge William Mallory could have put him in jail for 90 days, but instead of doing that he consulted with the victim in the case, who was a Baptist preacher.

“So for his penance, what if I make him go to your church a number of Sunday services?”

Thus instead of jail time, Strotman would serve 12 consecutive Sundays at a Baptist church.

“Three months, that’s not that bad,” he told the Enquirer. “I think it’s a nice example of hearing people out instead of getting angry and jumping to conclusions. I’m going to listen with both my ears and keep my mouth shut,” he said. “Then, maybe I’ll try to sell them some windows.”